Lesson 4: Thanh Mai Green Tea
Although still not free from poverty, since the Ho Chi Minh road passed through the area in 2004, Thanh Mai commune (Thanh Chuong) has been changing. With the road, tea and acacia are easily consumed. It is worth mentioning that the number of poor households in the hamlets along this road is decreasing significantly...
On a mild summer morning, we turned from Highway 7A onto Ho Chi Minh Road through the Khai Son (Anh Son) intersection. The flat road wound through the green hills. Villages with areca trees, bamboo hedges, fish ponds... the scenery was so peaceful. From here, it took us more than an hour to reach Thanh Mai Commune, the area with the most tea trees along the Ho Chi Minh Road, in Nghe An.
Summer has come, the purple mua flowers are blooming on the hillsides, creating a poetic look. The green of tea and acacia is gradually taking over each low hill that was previously bare and did not bring economic efficiency despite the hard-working hands of people in this poor land, which has been working tirelessly since ancient times. However, everything has changed since the Ho Chi Minh road was built. The tea growers in Thanh Mai land call it the "opening road" for economic development, thereby gradually improving cultural and spiritual life.
From Ho Chi Minh road to the center of Thanh Mai commune, there is only one bumpy dirt road, which is the main traffic route of the whole commune. This road connects Thanh Giang commune with Ho Chi Minh road. It is called the "bloodline" of the whole commune but it has not been concreted. This area is low-lying, so whenever it rains, it is flooded. People grow one crop, and eat for the whole year. The remaining half of the year is the time when the land is idle. The idle days are endless. Young people flock to the city and industrial parks to find work. On the way to the center of the commune, motorbikes jump up and down every now and then. My companion told me that going to this area feels like being in a remote area of a mountainous district. As for the commune cadres, they said that even though there is Ho Chi Minh road, people still look forward to the concrete of inter-commune and inter-village asphalt roads, only then can the national project passing through the commune fully function.
With a gentle and approachable demeanor, Vice Chairman of Thanh Mai Commune People's Committee Tran Cong Bang expressed pride in the historical tradition of his hometown. He said: "Before the Revolution, Hamlet 4 of Thanh Mai Commune was one of the places that responded to the Nghe - Tinh Soviet Movement in 1930-1931. During the two resistance wars against France and the US, the whole commune had 1,660 children joining the army and had over 130 martyrs."
However, Thanh Mai is still one of the poorest communes in Thanh Chuong district. People here still live mainly on agriculture. The whole commune has only 5 inner hamlets growing tea, the remaining 10 hamlets rely on rice and services, so the poverty rate is still high. One of the reasons why the farming hamlets are still poor is partly due to inconvenient transportation. In the outer area, almost all trade with the outside must go through Thanh Giang commune, a distance of 7-10 km.
During the rainy season, the entire commune is almost isolated because there is only one road, almost all motor vehicles cannot circulate. People from commune officials, teachers, to students... can only roll up their pants and wade. Ho Chi Minh road passes through the commune, in 2004, the whole commune had a clear economic differentiation. The whole commune has only 5km of trails passing through the hamlets of Nam Son, Trung Son, Bac Son, Da Bia, bringing prosperity to these residential areas. With a convenient road, the economy of the inner region seems to be given a new wind, while the outer region still faces many difficulties...
On a summer morning, we seemed to be lost in a green space with tea hills and acacia forests along the new road. Walking beside us, Vice Chairman of the commune Tran Cong Bang, with a constant smile on his face, excitedly confided: "Before, when there was no trail, the economic life of this area was no different from farming villages in the outer regions, because tea trees were difficult to transport and consume. When there was a road, service households developed more and agricultural products were consumed very easily. Since then, tea products have been more expensive." Seeing that business was favorable, people enthusiastically reclaimed wasteland to grow tea.
The land that was previously barren now has no more land to rest. As the area of tea trees increases rapidly, to meet the demand for products of farmers, in addition to Thanh Mai Tea Enterprise operating since 1969, well-off families in tea-growing hamlets have invested in raw tea processing factories. The whole commune currently has 7 raw tea processing facilities. During the harvest season, each small processing factory consumes 6-12 tons of fresh tea buds. In addition to tea trees, people also grow hybrid acacia. Currently, the whole commune has over 200 hectares of acacia that have been harvested.
While chatting, we arrived at Da Bia hamlet without realizing it. Vice Chairman Tran Cong Bang introduced a good business household in the hamlet, also a typical one in the commune, the family of Mr. Luong Van Vien. He and his wife and children moved from Nam Son hamlet to Da Bia hamlet nearly 20 years ago. At that time, poverty always haunted his family's life. Like the vast majority of other households in Da Bia hamlet, he and his family planted 1 hectare of tea to have products to import monthly to Thanh Mai Tea Enterprise. Since 1994, when he had reclaimed a fairly large area of land, Mr. Vien expanded the tea growing area to 5 hectares. Currently, each year Mr. Vien's family sells 60 tons of tea buds, earning 240 million VND. In addition to growing tea, his family also grows 5 hectares of hybrid acacia trees. Each harvest also brings in hundreds of millions of VND.
Mr. Luong Van Vien, a typical good businessman of Da Bia village.
With the innate diligence of each family member, Mr. Luong Van Vien is now the most well-off household in the village. He said that his family's prosperity today is largely due to the road that passes through the village. Because in the past, people often had to work very hard to sell a hundred kilograms of fresh tea, crossing streams and creeks, which was very expensive. When there was no road, motorbikes had to be parked in the outskirts and then walked home, and could not take a car home. Mr. Vien concluded: "To bring the upstream region to catch up with the downstream region, we must first build a road back."
However, Da Bia hamlet is not out of trouble yet. Mr. Vien shared: Currently, the hamlet is the only area that still does not have electricity. If electricity is available, Da Bia will become a rapidly developing area because tea, the main product of the whole hamlet, is bringing high efficiency.
In addition to Mr. Luong Van Vien, there is another elderly person who is good at business in Nam Son hamlet, Mr. Le Xuan An. Although he is nearly 60 years old and is currently the village chief, with only 2 main workers in his family, he still grows 5 hectares of tea and has a tea processing factory. In addition, he also has a fish pond and hundreds of free-range chickens. After deducting all labor costs and basic investment, Mr. An earns over 100 million VND per year.
Mr. An said that Nam Son hamlet has 100 households, all of whom grow tea on an area of over 100 hectares. Thanks to that, the poverty rate in previous years was over 40%, now it has dropped to only 16%. "With this momentum, in the next few years the poverty rate in Nam Son hamlet could drop to below 10%" - Mr. Le Xuan An said. In the hamlet, there is a household of Mr. Nguyen Van Duong, with only one private tea processing factory with a capacity of over 10 tons per day, giving him the highest annual income in the whole hamlet. In addition to tea trees, people in Nam Son hamlet also grow forests with over 100 hectares of acacia trees.
In addition to the advantages that the Ho Chi Minh Road brings, tea growers in Thanh Mai still face certain difficulties. During the dry season, many tea areas still have burnt leaves due to lack of irrigation water. However, according to village chief Le Xuan An, the reason is also because people have not fully exploited the potential of the ground. Thanh Mai land is inherently low-lying, with shallow groundwater, if people are willing to invest in drilling wells to irrigate the tea, the water shortage, leading to burnt tea leaves during the dry season, can be overcome.
Recently, Nam Son and Da Bia hamlets have received more good news. This tea material area has just invested in building 2 material roads connecting to Ho Chi Minh road, creating great convenience for tea growers. However, Thanh Mai commune is still basically very difficult in terms of transportation. Apart from the road named after Uncle Ho, the whole commune does not have a kilometer of asphalt road. That is a huge obstacle for over 7,000 people in the most difficult commune in Thanh Chuong mountainous district?!
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